9/23/2012

Even
from a technical perspective, implementation of the direct modeling module for a mass Russian MCAD KOMPAS-3Dis a non-routine event. If you are a skeptic not responsible for the success of your business, you may doubt the benefits and
prospects of direct modeling as much as you like. If, however, your interests
and responsibilities include enhancing competitive ability of your solutions on
the global market, you cannot be behind synchronous technology, Fusion
approach, Creo Direct, etc.To stay
ahead will be even better.

At the
end of my message, I give links to learn about
technological, historic and organizational aspects of developing variational
direct modeling technology (VDM), conceived by LEDAS. However, it is more
important for me to emphasize something different rather than technical aspects
of our achievements. It was effectually expressed in private communications by
a very reputable figure on the Russian market of engineering software: “I am
not apt to underestimate the breakthrough nature of the event. It’s a real
hassle to make arrangements with a single actor, but the three hardcore
competitors for CAD, kernels and solvers worked it out very well. The world is
changing, and this high-profile matter deserves to be communicated to the
people…”.

The
story has its own heroes. On the part of ASCON – this is, first of all,
Vladimir Panchenko, one of the leading ASCON production engineers and analysts,
who has studied capabilities of VDM technology from all sides. He made the key
contribution to architecture of its efficient integration into KOMPAS. Vladimir
is the KOMPAS-VDM project leader on behalf of ASCON; combining in-depth
competence, insistence on high standards and enthusiasm. He continuously
supported the project and will support its advancement.

On the
part of LEDAS - the project leader, Alexei Istomin, a capable young
mathematician and software engineer, who has become an effective, up-and-coming
manager in course of the project progress.

On the
part of Bricsys – this is, first of all, an outstanding founder and CEO of the
company, Erik de Keyser, for who the long-term strategic interests are much
more important than any superficial considerations about localized benefits and
tactical competition, related to possessing VDM technology, LGS geometric
solver used in VDM, and implementing VDM into the company’s own CAD - Bricscad.
By the way, I recommend you to follow the work of the next Bricsys conference in Amsterdam where Eric is going to announce new developments - likely not less
important than a year ago.

I would
like to specifically emphasize the role of Kolomna, a small town in Moscow area
which is a key place of ASCON’s software development projects. Apart from
Vladimir Panchenko, this unique town is the work place of, for instance, one of
the principal ASCON founders, as they say - "the KOMPAS Mum", the
Head of the KOMPAS-3D development unit in Kolomna, and just a charming woman –
Tatyana Yankina (see "ASCON Faces"); as well as Nikolai Golovanov, the
author of KOMPAS-3D geometric kernel, who published several fundamental books
on software engineering, an industry classic.

It is
impossible not to mention the not-yet-fully-exposed role of the phenomenal
Kolomna pastille in the success of ASCON technology (see the picture of it at
the end of the story). Even in mid of XIX century, the most famous Russian
composer Peter Tchaikovsky used to come
to Kolomna to taste this pastille and probably to be inspired for his Swan Lake
ballet. Today, the town has an excellent museum of pastille which always
attracts a lot of tourists. Who knows maybe specific ingredients of the local
pastille nourish the developers of KOMPAS:).

Kolomna
is certainly very special, but the decision about the ASCON project was
obviously made in St Petersburg at the ASCON HQ; and we must emphasize the
innovative courage of the company top executives, which has been robustly
unfolding lately. As you
can see, the project is transcontinental (A - Novosibirsk, LEDAS, B - Kolomna, ASCON-KOMPAS, C - St Petersburg, D - Gent, Belgium, Bricsys):

You can
learn about variational direct modeling and its implementation as well as about
transition of VDM to Bricsys and its life there from

DS has always shown great interest in Russia – taking into account the country's huge potential for industry and economic development. One of the proofs was that Francis Bernard, the DS Founder, its first president, and actual inventor of CATIA, in 2005 becamethe first director of Dassault Systems Russia.Also, we could see how, from year to year, the Forum was attended by more and more high ranked representatives of the Paris office.

This year, the event has been rebranded into 3DExperience Forum and is going to set a record that is unlikely to be ever surpassed. Take a look below at the official list of the DS attendees and judge for yourself (in brackets – some comments from isicad).

1. CEO Bernard Charles (some of the isicad experts will not be surprised if Bernard meets Putin or Medvedev or somebody close to them)

2. EVP Monica Menghini

3. Vice-President Marine and Offshore industry Alain Houard (NB: there is a huge project to build a number of helicopter carriers based on a French license);

9/11/2012

isicad.net has just published "The Power of T-FLEX CAD Parametric Modeling. Part I" by CEO and CTO of Top Systems, a leading Russian privately held CAD/PLM company which this summer celebrated its 20th anniversary. The company is known first of all by its well-developed parametric MCAD system T-FLEX, which is quite popular in Russia and CIS and, probably, when supported by a powerful marketing, could become popular globally. You can find some characteristics of T-FLEX in “T-FLEX Parametric CAD”by Deelip Menezes , “The Russian MCAD Market”by Ralph Grabowski, and in multiple publications of isicad.net – such as for example “T-FLEX CAD 12 Released”.

Experts and developers of Top Systems has accumulated a huge competence and experience in engineering software, and nobody was surprised to learn at the beginning of 2012 that Top Systems became one of the key contractors of the Russian Geometric Kernel project.

Top Systems has step by step built a full scale PLM environment – also integrated with a number of ERP-modules. Some intermediate results of this direction were presented at seminar COFES-Russia/isicad-2010. I hope that attendees of the planned COFES-Russia/isicad-2013 will be able to learn much about the latest PLM-results of Top Systems – called PLM+.

Interesting to mention that couple days ago, I wrote in @levin_david: “Today the isicad.ru article (from May 21) which compares SolidWorks vs Russian T-FLEX received a comment No.1000 http://bit.ly/OvjgOQ“. I believe that Top Systems has not yet realized its full potential and hopefully this richly illustrated paper will increase global awareness of the company, its solutions, and competence.

9/01/2012

Today the summer is over, and now, in Siberia, I reminisce couple days spent in Barcelona with my two (from six) grandchildren. These are some pictures and videos with minimum comments. We already know that Barcelona has won 2-1:At the market Boqueria:

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is known by everyone as the Number One attraction of Barcelona and a masterpiece of Gaudi (click to enlarge):

I wonder what could this gentleman tell to a girl to make her so happy (click to enlarge):

This Catalan word sounds for me more expressive than all its translations that I know:

Montjuïc (according to Wikipedia translated as 'Jew Hill' in medieval Catalan, or is perhaps related to the Latin phrase Mons Jovicus ('hill of Jove')) together with its "colored and music" fountain is one of the top 10 city attractions. A view from the hill is really great (make a full screen):

Frankly, I did not understand why thousands of people compete to occupy comfortable places and are waiting 2-3 hours to see how he fountain starts. But they do wait, and they obviously are happy.

During those waiting hours, some local people are making their business:

However a Russian child with his spontaneous parody overdanced all businessmen: